i sit here still and hear the
cries
the mothers’ arms empty of
her childshe holds in one hand the words
text on her phone “If I forgot to tell
you recently, mom, I love you
why did the sea get angry and
turn
lives upside down? swallow them
intoits belly before they could say their goodbyes
as they pray in their last moments for
the strength within them and those they
love and left behind
i sit here still, oceans away
yet I feel
an anguish a pain of how
their absencemiserably fills the emptiness
in mothers’ hearts who gave birth and
breast fed thinking they’d share life’s
challenges good and bad for years
before they themselves return
to Mother earth
we’ve been witness to the insatiable
oceans need to feed from
lives in the skyand those playing in its waves, I wonder…
these lives, are they the lucky souls, have
they been taken so that they aren’t witness
to what the rest of us may soon be
when the sky and sun is covered with smoke
of burning flesh from wars and denuded forests
and the seas will swallow the land from melting ice
dare not sit here still, I rise and walk out side
breathe the air, kiss the
earth, embracethe trees, the birds, I hug my lover my wife
and my two canine children; tomorrow may
not be mine
